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Journals and Conferences

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Snake robots, sometimes called hyper-redundant mechanisms, can use their many degrees of freedom to achieve a variety of locomotive capabilities. These capabilities are ideally suited for disaster response because the snake robot can thread through tightly packed volumes, accessing locations that people and conventional machinery otherwise cannot. Snake… (More)

This paper describes a series of gaits which we developed for a free crawling snake robot. Snake robots, a class of hyper-redundant mechanisms, can use their many degrees of freedom to achieve a variety of locomotion capabilities. Like their biological counterparts, snake robots locomote using cyclic motions called gaits. These cyclic motions directly… (More)

Triclosan (TCS) and triclocarbon (TCC) are bactericides used in various consumer and personal-care products. Recent studies have revealed considerable levels of these bactericides in wastewater, aquatic wildlife, and human samples. Consequently, in this study we measured TCS and TCC in influent and effluent, sludge, and pond water/sediment samples from four… (More)

Many factors such as size, power, and weight constrain the design of modular snake robots. Meeting these constraints requires implementing a complex mechanical and electrical architecture. Here we present our solution, which involves the construction of sixteen aluminum modules and creation of the Super Servo, a modified hobby servo. To create the Super… (More)

Synthetic musk fragrances are added to a wide variety of personal care and household products and are present in treated wastewater effluent. Here we report for the first time ambient air and water measurements of six polycyclic musks (AHTN, HHCB, ATII, ADBI, AHMI, and DPMI) and two nitro musks (musk xylene and musk ketone) in North America. The compounds… (More)

Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) is a brominated flame retardant used primarily in expanded polystyrene foams and other styrene resins. Samples of blubber (n = 57) and liver (n = 16) from Atlantic white-sided dolphins, Lagenorhynchus acutus, that stranded on the eastern coast of United States between 1993 and 2004 were obtained from the National Marine Mammal… (More)

Perfluorooctane surfactants have been reported in biota, water, and air samples worldwide. Despite these reports, the main environmental sources of these compounds remain undefined. To address this gap in knowledge, an annual lake-wide mass budget of eight perfluorooctane surfactants was developed for Lake Ontario. To determine the atmospheric contribution… (More)

Concern about the environmental fate and potential effects of synthetic organic chemicals used in soaps, lotions, toothpaste, and other personal care products continues to increase. This review describes procedures used for the analysis of five classes of these compounds-synthetic musk fragrances, antimicrobials, ultraviolet filters, insect repellents, and… (More)

Local and regional atmospheric transport of current-use pesticides is an important source of these compounds to nontarget plants and ecosystems. Current-use pesticides were measured at urban, rural, and suburban sites in eastern Iowa during 2000-2002. The most detected compounds were hexachlorobenzene and trifluralin, which were found in 89% and 78% of the… (More)